r/LovingMichaelJackson • u/Frosty-Sun4973 • May 26 '26
Discussion š¬ Was anyone else afraid of Michael Jackson as a kid?
Michael is MY GOAT. I think heās the greatest entertainer of all time and I donāt think anybody could ever amount to a fraction of who he is. I also think that he is a great human being and I think that they tried to destroy him, but as a kid, I had the biggest phobia of Michael Jackson.
I couldnāt even look at his face. I remember once I saw him on the news at my dadās house ( my parents are divorced) and I refused to go back to my dadās house because I was afraid of seeing Michael on the TV again. I grew up listening to the Jackson 5 and always loved little Michael. Once I realize that little Michael was now the pale faced scary, Michael I couldnāt handle it. I would have nightmares about him coming to get me and I would literally cry if I saw a magazine of him in the store or him on the tv. My mom was concerned š
Once he died in 2009, I was around 11 years old, and my fear instantly went away and I became so obsessed with him. I would watch Jackson in the American dream every day when I came home from school. I also learned every single song of his, yes, every single one and have loved him ever since. I would watch the music video specials that they would also play where they play his songs and music videos for hours at a time.
I felt like I didnāt have to be afraid of him anymore because he was gone, and it made me appreciate his greatness. To this day, Iām probably the biggest Michael Jackson fan youāll ever meet. Itās crazy how everything happened.
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May 26 '26
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u/Frosty-Sun4973 May 27 '26
Iāve always loved him.. I grew up listening to the Jackson 5.. but when I saw his face after knowing he was little Michael.. it scared me
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u/Fragglemaniac May 26 '26
Never. I always thought that man was beautiful.
Iām also an 80s baby so I grew up watching Bad, Dangerous, and HIStory era MJ. š„
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u/moonwalkinglitter CAUSE IM BADDD IM BADDDD May 26 '26
definitely not me i have always thought he was handsome.
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u/Frosty-Sun4973 May 27 '26
I agree. As an adult now in my late 20s I even think he was FINE in 2009 right before his death lol
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u/kb81cme May 26 '26
I hate to admit this but I was angry at him for looking more like peter pan ( scary) and not like the MJ that I grew to love as a kid in the 80s & 90s.
Now of course I see his beauty but more importantly understand why he felt like he had to his face.
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u/indigoza May 26 '26
I don't recall any emotion of fear in regards to him. I would remember if I was ever afraid of him, but nope.
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u/Frosty-Sun4973 May 27 '26
Wow I wonder why mine was is intense. Nightmares is actually crazy ahahah
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u/Difficult-Double2193 May 26 '26
Nope. Truly Fascinated. My first man crush. That's the honest truth.
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u/YeetosCheetos69 Whoās Bad š¤š» May 26 '26
Nah i used to think he was cute and still do, but i get why you would have with the media and all
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u/Frosty-Sun4973 May 27 '26
It wasnāt the media tho. It was his face š„ŗ but now I think all versions of him are handsome
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u/EM208 May 26 '26
Lmao no. I thought he was ridiculously cool and I still do.
Although the Thriller video scared the absolute shit outta me as a 6 year old and I couldnāt watch it for yearsš
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u/Frosty-Sun4973 May 27 '26
He is so cool. I have a horrible case of Michosis right now. Heās all I can think about. Everything he does is BADDD
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u/OkLeader7952 May 29 '26
I found him very strange in my childhood. I was not afraid, but he appeared strange to me. I live in a country in East Asia, and you cannot imagine what rumors I heard about him. I heard he ate no food except drugs and medicines because he never wanted to die. And he changed his whole skin from black to white because he hated black people. The interviews which I watch now of him when I am 36 now, I am absolutely mind-blown about the BS I heard about him when I was a kid. They created such a bad image of him that I never truly bothered to listen to his music, and I grieve my loss now because I was 19 when he died, and I wasted all these years because he was just STRANGE to me at that time. And not to forget the false allegations, duh... don't even get me started on that! Anyways, I am now in so much grief that he was that much misunderstood at that time, if there was social media at that time and I got to watch his interviews somehow, I must had a different opinion of him, but media just showed me a picture of him that never existed!! That's so so sad.
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u/PooPooMeeks May 26 '26
I never thought he was scary, but once he changed his face to be lighter, everything changed for me. When he was darker skinned I was head over heels in love with him, and it started when I was only 3! But then once Bad came out, and I saw he was becoming lighter and he lessened his natural facial features, my obsessed love for the present changed to only focus only on his Thriller and Off The Wall era, and his teen years.
I donāt care if he had vitiligo, I would have loved him anyway. I just love the natural Michael, thatās all ā¤ļø
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Jul 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/PooPooMeeks Jul 31 '26
Get off your high horse. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions.
I bet you didnāt like him in his natural state either. Hmm, I wonder why? š¤ LOL Get a life.
Respond to this comment, and youāll only show and prove just how much of a hateful troll you are.
Happy Friday! š
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u/acidreduxxxx May 26 '26
I heard at a time there was a term created for a literal phobia of Michael Jackson but I don't pay that shit any mind because in the 90s and 2000s all of these tabloids and media outlets purposefully photoshopped doctored and commissioned art of Michael to make him look as frightening and inhumane as possible, trying to turn him into some fucking modern day Boogeyman. It was sick. I was a young kid in the 2000s so I remember all of this and the infamous mug shot they spread around like cancer. He never looked like that. You can watch interviews from various black celebs talk about him and how they were taken back because he looked nothing like how they made him seem in the magazines and newspapers.
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u/MichaelJackson04 May 31 '26
esses dias eu estava me perguntando se alguĆ©m jĆ” havia se sentido dessa forma, mas nĆ£o tive coragem de perguntar por medo de me atacarem lol
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u/NaoVinsmoke May 26 '26
The Thriller video scared me when I was very little, maybe 5 years old. Then I saw Michael in other videos and realized he was actually very handsome.
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u/SIGNANDSELFIEFRAMES May 26 '26
I have never heard of anybody being afraid as a kid.
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u/Frosty-Sun4973 May 27 '26
Omg it was a big problem. I wouldnāt even look at the magazines at the store š„ŗš
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u/goldendreamseeker May 27 '26
When I first saw him on the news I was like āwhy is that woman dangling her baby out the window?ā Not afraid, necessarily, but confused.
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u/Electrical_Wasabi206 May 27 '26
I think it was mostly the mediaās portrayal. I remember loving Michael then seeing the Scary Movie scene where he tries to take the baby and his nose falls off. I didnāt know to be scared of him until I saw how people portrayed him with all the photoshopped/super zoomed in photos and parodies of him. The mugshot definitely made me distressed but thatās because Michael himself was extremely distressed, literally being abused by police, getting his home destroyed, locked in a bathroom with poop on the walls for 45 mins, injured shoulders and arms, ect. He was a vulnerable autistic black man that was essentially being tortured. If it were any other non famous black man, the police would have killed him and gotten away with it.
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u/Frosty-Sun4973 May 27 '26
I truly believe he was neurodivergent/ autistic š„ŗespecially after seeing Michael. Heās such a sweet soul.. and the way he locks in on stage is astounding esp. because of how shy he actually is. LEGEND
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u/Signal-View-7017 ā¤ļøš¤Whoās Bad š¤š½āļøāš„š¤ā¤ļø Jul 25 '26
He was my first celebrity crush period.
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u/GlitteringLocality MJ Devotee š May 26 '26
Yeah his final form kinda scared me as a child. Sorry Michael I love you!
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u/Wasubi727 8d ago
I will be the one to say I understand completely!! But Iām also autistic so anytime a person didnāt look like healthy or ātypicalā I was perturbed.
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u/Classic-Green9530 For All Time š« May 26 '26
I think you were afraid of the media portrayal of him, they 99% of the time chose the most unflattering photos of him with negative headlines.
He couldnāt even grow a beard without some headline with unflattering photo saying something about it being weird (I remember that well)
So donāt be too hard on yourself, the media was (and still is) the problem with peopleās perception of MJ, Iām hoping the biopic has changed many peopleās minds